


Chrysalis

by LelithSugar



Category: Kingsman (Movies)
Genre: Angst, Bittersweet, Established Harry Hart | Galahad/Gary "Eggsy" Unwin, Established Relationship, I'm Sorry, M/M, Not Canon Compliant, Romance, Tearjerker, short and sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-26
Updated: 2018-06-26
Packaged: 2019-05-29 01:23:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 940
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15061988
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LelithSugar/pseuds/LelithSugar
Summary: Life is brief, but, when it's goneLove goes on and on.[For heaven's sake, heed the archive warnings and the tags]





	Chrysalis

**Author's Note:**

> Yep, that's the song from Disney’s take on Robin Hood and I have a lot of feelings about it, and about the tropes herein and needed to do something about it. Heed the tags and warnings and proceed accordingly, please.

 

Chrysalis

They were never going to grow old together. That much was always plain. It was a sticking point, in their early days, to be bitterly regretted later: too much angst, too much time wasted on  _ but  _ and  _ what if _ s before passion had got the better of them. And what did it matter, really? A twenty-seven year age gap might have been a daunting thought if it weren’t for the constant threat of mortal peril that came with their way of life. As it was, it knocked the spectral sword hanging over them into a swing that rendered it more or less inert. 

There's a liberty, they discover, that comes with accepting that each and every kiss could be your last. 

It means that Eggsy doesn’t individually remember the one that is, and that’s probably a mercy. Death comes for Harry on a routinely risky assignment in Cuba. Eggsy is under deep cover at the other end of the same chain, so he is spared watching but hears,; slips away for the few seconds left to tell Harry that he loves him when Harry calls his name, and to compose himself, clutching at his throat in the silence after he answers. Neither of them says goodbye, and it’s better for that. They should have gone out together, side by side and with a moment to spare for one last kiss, but Eggsy knows enough to be grateful for the small mercies. 

Harry’s death is clean enough, at least, for the open coffin he insisted on were it a possibility. That's his sense of humour all over, really, as well as a necessary final apology to those who need the closure this time. A sob comes out as a laugh that threatens to strangle Eggsy when he hears Harry in his head chuckling over their ‘til death do us part’ - that it had already had a bloody good go. 

_ Nah. Still gonna have to try harder,  _ he whispers, maybe not even aloud, smiling against his closed fist with a last glance to Harry’s wedding ring; to his hand relaxed on his chest where Eggsy’s head would lay. 

Eggsy goes on.  He has weathered this specific heartbreak before, after all. And this time he at least has happy memories with which to balm his aching soul;  almost a decade’s worth. Not much of a life, but so much more than it might have been, and he treasures every minute. 

Eggsy doesn't allow himself to be lonely. There's no time for all that. There's a world to save every few years, like clockwork, like a fucking lava lamp, new scum floats to the top unnoticed and has to be beaten down and nobody will ever, ever fucking learn. But the world is always worth saving one more time. Not for himself, these days, but for his sister, who wants to study global politics at university; for Roxy’s baby son, who’s third word is “Egg”; for all those too young to shape the mess they're growing into. For Harry, who would be proud regardless. Eggsy keeps fighting the good fight, albeit with a little less self preservation than he had when there was something of his own to go home to other than inherited taxidermy and the portrait of his love that hangs in the Kingsman boardroom.   _ Made it again,  _ he nods at the picture when he comes home in something recognisable as one piece.  _ More by luck than judgement,  _ the eyes in that picture smile.  _ You’re a jammy bugger, we always had that in common. _ Eggsy never argues. 

When he dreams of Harry, they're usually dancing for some reason. It’s not as often as he'd like it to be: usually he doesn't dream at all, but Harry comes back to him sometimes, in his sleep, and leads him in a foxtrot like the first time, light and close and carefree. Those are the best nights.

The rest of the time, Eggsy tries not to begrudge others their sort-of-happy homes; tries not to cheapen what he had by looking at mediocrity like he used to look at things he couldn’t afford in shop windows. That was never going to be their life. Chance would have been a fine thing, to have long enough to get bored of each other. Perhaps then he’d feel the loss a little less keenly, but perhaps not. Before Harry, forever had seemed like a horrendous burden to promise someone, and yet it had only taken Eggsy a couple of months - perhaps less, if he’s truly honest - of love to know the true cruelty that forever wouldn’t be enough; that however long they had was only going to show them what there was to lose, but it was worth it.

God, was it worth it.

It’s the memory of that feeling that always gets him through the worst pain and so it’s of Harry that Eggsy thinks when he falls to the tarmac - wounded, exhausted, bleeding copiously from somewhere he hasn’t had time to place - awaiting extraction after narrowly averting World War Three. 

...Although, he suspects, it may not make any difference for him. Because there's a heaviness dragging Eggsy under even whist a lightness pulls at him, lifting him, and it's strangely beautiful. He closes his eyes, just to bask in it - because why fight, when it stops everything hurting? -  and he knows it's over this time because the blackness opens not onto the grey, drizzling sky or the glaring whit _ e _ of a hospital ceiling but to an endlessly familiar fitting room. And there, looking at Eggsy over his own shoulder in the mirror, stands Harry Hart. 

 

**Author's Note:**

> The working title of this was just ‘nope’. Honestly this was just a very necessary exercise in ‘how much can the author make herself cry in as few words as possible' and I sincerely apologise to anyone caught in the crossfire. But, an apology is nothing without amends and therefore I would like to ensure you that, as per usual service, I have a bucket full of half-finished fluffy, sweet comedy-smut and every intention of posting something quick and dirty for you to wash this down with tomorrow, in an attempt to redeem myself.
> 
> Also, if it helps at all, this was not envisioned specifically to be part of the same universe as the majority of my other Hartwin stuff, so you can do with it as you will. But if it gave you feelings, I'd like to hear them.


End file.
